UN double standards leave a bad taste

António Guterres needs to be replaced if the UN is to retain any shred of credibility

António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, has been forthright in his denunciation of Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon. Just a few days ago he “unequivocally condemned” the loss of civilian lives in the IDF’s latest operations against Hamas and Hezbollah targets.
Yet Mr Guterres thinks it perfectly acceptable to attend a summit in Russia organised by Vladimir Putin, whose forces have been bombarding civilians in Ukraine for more than two years.
Moreover, the Russians were not provoked into their invasion by the murder of more than 1,000 citizens or the taking of hostages, but embarked on an illegal attempt to annex an independent country under the spurious guise of self-defence.
Mr Guterres is due to hold talks with the Russian leader on the fringes of the so-called BRICS meeting taking place in the city of Kazan on the Volga. No doubt he will claim he is making an effort to resolve the conflict with Ukraine, set off by a Russian aggression that was also “unequivocally condemned” by the UN General Assembly within a few weeks of the invasion in 2022.
The Secretary General has further damaged the already weakened standing of the UN, showing it to have double standards when it comes to denouncing the deaths of civilians. Moreover, if he was so keen on engineering a rapprochement between Russia and Ukraine why did he refuse to attend a peace conference in Switzerland a few months ago?
His action in giving Putin the oxygen of respectability he craves is outrageous. Mr Guterres has been Secretary General for seven years and that is long enough. He needs to be replaced if the UN is to retain any shred of credibility.